“There now, that is it—I’m answered—I was sure it would break her little heart,” cried the old man, desperately—“I’ll do it. I’ll bind myself, hand and foot—I’ll make an eternal old fool of myself. I’ll—I’ll. It’s no use struggling, I’m sold, lost—tied up—married!”
He uttered the last word ferociously, casting it down as if it had been a rock.
“Not for me, Turner—not for me,” I said, losing all sense of the ludicrous in his genuine repugnance to the measure Lady Catherine had proposed. “I do not understand this—what on earth is the reason they cannot let us live in peace?”
“Because you must be cutting loose from my authority—cantering about like a little Nimrod in long skirts—fighting hounds—getting acquainted with young men whom you ought to hate—to hate, I say Miss Zana! Because you are a little fool, and I am an old one. Because, because—but it’s no use talking.”
I began to see my disobedience in its true light. Certainly it was impossible to comprehend why it had led to the necessity which my old benefactor so much deplored, but I felt to the bottom of my heart that this evil, whatever it was, had been brought on by myself.
“Mr. Turner,” I said, “if I stay in-doors a month, nay, a whole year, will it do any good?”
“No—not the least!”
“What can I do? Indeed, indeed, Turner, I am very sorry,” I persisted; “but let us go away; it will be far better to leave Cora and Jupiter, the house and everything.”
Why did I lose my voice so suddenly? Why did the thought that George Irving was at Greenhurst depress my heart and speech? I felt myself growing pale, and looking despairingly around the lovely garden, for the first time realizing how dear every flower had become.
Turner looked at me wistfully, and at length went away. I saw him an hour after wandering to and fro in the wilderness. I did not leave the window, though breakfast had been long waiting. The whole conversation had bewildered me. Why should Turner dread this marriage so much—was it not right? It seemed to me a very easy thing when so much depended on it. I had never thought seriously of marriage in my whole life, and its very mysteriousness made me look upon Turner as the victim of some hidden evil. I was resolved that he should not be sacrificed. What was my bonne, friends, Jupiter, to the comfort of an old friend like him?